Show Notes
In this powerful episode, Derek Vreeland sits down with theologian Brad Jersak for a conversation about cross which is at the heart of our Christian faith. Together, they explore the transformative mission of St. Stephen’s University, the radical love of God revealed through the cross, and how to break free from toxic images of wrath.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone seeking a stronger theological foundation for peacemaking and reconciliation, especially during Lent. Brad also shares eye-opening insights on reading scripture through the lens of Christ, challenging common misconceptions about God’s true nature. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that will reshape how you view faith and the cross.
Key Takeaways
The cross is the ultimate revelation of God’s true nature.
To fully grasp the cross, we must see it in light of the resurrection.
Toxic views of God often arise from poor teaching and personal wounds.
Reading scripture through the lens of Christ uncovers deeper, transformative truths.
The cross is both our rescue from sin and a powerful display of God’s love.
Misunderstandings of an angry God can stunt spiritual growth.
The Emmaus approach to scripture links the Old Testament to Christ’s fulfillment.
A Christ-centered view of God can radically change lives.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Romans 5:9
Books mentioned in this episode:
A More Christlike God by Bradley Jersak
Learn more about what Brad is doing at St. Stephens University
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Get to know the host: https://derekvreeland.com
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek. Vreeland. And if you are new to our podcast, let me invite you to subscribe right here where you’re listening to this podcast episode. Today I have a conversation that I am so looking forward to. And here on the Peaceable and Kind podcast, we are in the midst of a little series focused on the cross. And so if you are finding any kind of value in these podcast episodes, let me invite you to leave a rating or a review. That does help other people find out about our podcast. Well, as we are reflecting Acting on the cross, I wanted to have a conversation with a theologian that I thought would be helpful. And uh so I reached out to my friend Brad Jerzak, and he has agreed to join us today. Dr. Bradley Jerzak is an author and teacher based in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He currently serves as the principal of St. Stephen’s University in New Brunswick, where he continues as the dean and faculty member of SSU’s School of Theology and Culture. Brad and his wife Eden live and have lived in Abbotsford since nineteen eighty-eight. They were pastors and church planters for twenty years. And Brad is an author of a number of books, including the more Christ-like trilogy of books, a more Christ-like word, a more Christ-like God a more Christ-like way. He’s also the author of books like Out of the Embers, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, Can You Hear Me? These are all books that I have recommended and have read. Brad has an MA in Biblical Studies from Briarcrest Biblical College and Seminary, an M. Div in Biblical Studies from Trinity Western University, and a PhD in theology From Bangor University. He is an ordained reader in the Orthodox Church, and I am happy to call him my friend. Brad, welcome to Peaceable and Kind. Thanks for having me, Derek. It’s good to hear your voice and be with you for a bit here today. Yeah, I’m so glad that we had this time. It has been far too long since we’ve had a a good theological conversation. Tell me, so what’s happening these days with Dr. Jerzak? And I’m really curious to know what’s happening at St. Stephen’s University.
Brad Jersak: Yes, we have been on a remarkable run at St. Stephen’s. It is a graduate school of theology. Peace and reconciliation. So that represents three departments. So people can can take hybrid master’s degrees Uh hybrid meaning you can do it online. There’s parts where you come in for a week-long retreat. There’s recorded lessons and live Zoom gatherings, and then a travel module to Northern Ireland that’s a pilgrimage. So That hybrid has really attracted people. So I I I also lead the theology and culture department where we’re trying to transcend left-right polarization. Then we’re finding there is a market for people who are so tired of that that they want to come around a table and become bridge builders. And then we have a peace and justice wing called the Jim Forrest Institute, and that’s for people who are activists. who want to uh be peacemakers in the world, but not just the red eyed angry activist. You know, so the foundation of that department is called the inner transformation of the peacemaker. How to how to have longevity because of a transformed, peaceable heart. Peaceable and kind, they say. And then reconciliation studies, that’s working with our indigenous peoples to respond in better ways than they’ve experienced. And it’s a kind of decolonized faith where they’re getting in touch with Jesus of Nazareth rather than Jesus of Geneva, you know, that kind of thing. And So we’ve been we’ve been just having a wonderful burst of growth that’s allowed us to have students around the world. So right now we have students from Canada and the United States and UK and Germany, Northern Ireland. Switzerland, Siberia, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, all at once, which creates a nightmare for time zones, but it’s working. So we’re having a good time And people can dip in. So one example is people have started a program with Brian Zahn’s course on the Brothers Caramazon. They can take that for credit. Yes. And if they’re doing that, then well, we’ll see what else you might be interested in. But it’d be nice to have university credit if you’re sitting through so many uh conversations anyway. So we’re providing that. And that’s basically Other than being a grandparent, the main thing I’m up to right now.
Derek Vreeland: I love that, Brad. And I’m so happy to hear that you’re seeing growth and uh international growth. And I I have seen online a number of friends here in the States uh who are a part of that program. And I launched peaceable and kind this whole podcast. uh to to create uh Christian content that is promoting peace, peacemaking, uh peaceableness, kindness in our world. I I love uh hearing about these programs that you’re doing at St. St. Stephen’s because I think it’s necessary. I think for Christians To be active peacemakers in the world, to advocate as Jesus did for justice, for reconciliation, we need a firm theological foundation. Um, it’s not just sentimental. I think sentimentally I think people feel the need for peace and peacemaking in our world. But I think to really advocate for reconciliation in the way of Jesus, we do need a firm uh theological foundation. So a love hearing of a graduate school. uh that is providing that. And by the way, we will put uh a link to St. Stephen’s University um in the show notes And speaking of theology, I did want to talk a little bit about theology with you today because we are in this series during the season of Lent, focused on the cross. And for me, the cross has become uh the center, the organizing principle, the foundation for my theology. How exactly does the cross demonstrate and show us the true heart and nature of God?
Brad Jersak: Yeah, that’s that’s a wonderful question. The central question really. Before I answer it directly, I want to say that I grew up thinking the cross meant the crucifixion. And it’s a bit more than that. So in the New Testament, the crucifixion is what we did to Jesus. It was a murder, it was a torture, it was an injustice. But for the New Testament authors, the cross was what God in Christ has done. And not only on Good Friday, but the whole Paschal weekend. So the Passover weekend where We’re already at the cross, we’re seeing the forthcoming victory of the resurrection. So they don’t divide it up like we have in the West so much with Good Friday is the cross. Easter Sunday is the resurrection. It’s all it’s all this package. So now back to your question. Paul can say, I glory in nothing but the cross. Well, he hasn’t forgotten the resurrection. He just includes it as part of it. So Now the the then the way I would frame this is that the cross then it is the definitive Revelation of God’s nature as self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love. So so that’s a definitive revelation, the par excellence, and then it’s also a decisive victory over We used to say Satan, sin and death, but you know I have these Baptist roots that like alliteration, so sometimes I’ll say darkness, dread, and doom. Um so it’s definitive revelation. And and isn’t this amazing that As Tom Holland pointed out, the primary image of used for God in the world now, in history, is actually the cross I mean, there’s other images, but it’s the dominant image of God for humanity has become this cross. And I just think that’s so amazing. And it’s so subversive to the other images that are toxic, you know. So the almighty, powerful, vengeful warrior God is not, has not won the day as our image of God. Now we need to call people back to the cross as the image of God and say, what does that really mean? And that’s where I think we can chat a bit about the cross unwraths God for us in a real way.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, for the Christian tradition, uh, the cross is our primary symbol. And uh I appreciated that comment about uh Paul uh saying he wants to know nothing but Christ crucified. So being cross-centered doesn’t negate the value of the incarnation in the life of Jesus. as well as his resurrection and ascension because it is it is as we would say a package deal. It goes all together. I also have a uh roots in a Baptist tradition that so narrowly focuses in on the cross, and I understand that impulse, that they want to see the cross simply as a mechanism um sort of keeping the rest of what we’d call the Paschal mystery um in in the sort of back view. but it really all it all goes together. But the cross does become emblematic of this life miracle, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, the cross becomes the primary symbol of that. I do love that. Um that if people think of the Christian God. as uh James Bryan Smith calls the uh the God that Jesus made famous, um how we emblematically think of that God is is the cross. And it is something that we can have a historical perspective and a theological perspective, right? So, yes, historically, the cross is what we did when God came to us in human form, but then from a theological or from God’s point of view, this is what God came to do for us. It was God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
Brad Jersak: Yeah, I especially appreciate that you mentioned that that we don’t now see it as a mechanism Which is, you know, it’s we’d ask I think some of that came from how does the cross work? And it’s like, how does the cross save us from God or something strange like that? But really it it is If the cross is in in fact an emblem of Jesus Christ Himself, then the the question is how how has Jesus redeemed us, liberated us, set us free, and and what does the cross have to do with that? Well Yeah. Um when I say self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love, that’s what he’s doing there, right? That’s what’s happening there, yes.
Derek Vreeland: And and so here’s a little bit of alliteration for you. I’ve I’ve used this often to speak of the cross as both rescuing and revealing. So the cross is rescuing us from sin and death and our subjectivity to death. But then the cross is also revealing that this is what the kingdom of God is like. This indeed is what God is like. And so I’ve I’ve read uh nearly everything you’ve written, Brad, but your more Christ-like series I’ve have found so Pastorally helpful. I have recommended a more Christ-like God, maybe more than any other book in my library. Because just pastorally, I think it has helped so many people. But the entire phrase, a more Christ-like God, um isn’t I mean, why why emphasize that God is Christ-like? I mean, shouldn’t that be obvious? You would hope so, but the reality is that we develop toxic images of God.
Brad Jersak: Some of that, I would say, can be from bad teaching or inherited theologies. But I think also it’s just um it it can be from life experiences. So what I run into, especially from the pastoral side, are people who are angry with God They hate God, they’re afraid of God, they’re unlit and then IFS will tell me about this God you’re afraid of, and it will be uh invariably some big categories. One would be the angry, punitive. vengeful God who who’s hovering around waiting to punish, and is the agent of all the trouble in their life. Another one would be the God who’s distant and silent and absent, the deadbeat dad, who’s abandoned them and is nowhere to be found. And where was he when I went through the things I went through? And uh to say he was with you makes it worse because they think of him sitting in the corner watching their suffering and doing nothing about it. What kind of love is that? And then there’s this other kind where it’s like the God I can manipulate, the fairy godmother god, or the the genie in the lantern, if I just rub the bottle the right way in worship or prayer or in self-deprecation. Or it’d be like how my grandson can wrap me around his finger by looking at me the right way. Well maybe I can do that with God. And then Let’s say I’m disappointed because I don’t get the answer I wanted, and now it’s the God who I I’m offended because he he didn’t obey me. So I run into these kind of things and I’m and and we walk through how do we where did this originate? Where did you come to see God like this? And then we introduce Jesus into it and he shows them who God is in Himself and the contrast is so liberating and they’re like, I never knew God was like that. Well and that’s where we would say then, well you need a more Christ like God because God, Jesus is God, revealed And God’s self-revelation to us or he is what God has to say about himself and these other toxic images are false gods that you can become an atheist of. You should just really be an atheist of those images because they’re they’ve not been healthy. They’ve not borne fruit. They don’t look like Jesus.
Derek Vreeland: It it is true. I have encountered uh many people that have these wrong and very toxic images of who God is. And I I’ve experienced that with people in in showing them the God who is like Jesus and and the joy that comes to people. Um, I’m very thankful that the Baptist tradition that I came from, I never really got heavy doses of an angry God. So personally, I didn’t have to wrestle with that. I’m just very grateful that the the teachers that I had and the pastors that I had as a teenager in a Baptist context. really emphasized uh the the love of God revealed in Jesus. But pastorally, I I’ve talked with many people, very traumatized, particularly with this angry God. And I’ve I’ve wondered if some of that is a projection, if people were grew up in a home with an angry father. And then they project that image on God. But sort of like historically and theologically, where does this idea of a of a of a wrathful God come from? Oh, there’s there’s a few layers to that.
Brad Jersak: To distill it, I would say a particular way of reading the Bible. You know, if you read the Bible with a literalist lens, you’re going to find a very wrathful God in uh especially in the Hebrew scriptures, but also books like Revelation. Where it appears on the surface, first the first reading, that he he he hates sin and and that he punishes sinners, and uh there’s a lot of blood shed that way. And so We’re going to need to learn a different way to read those texts. And maybe we had pastors who presented them that way without seeing how Jesus fulfills and transcends them. But I also want to say there I run into this more than you would think with people who’ve never even darkened the door of a church. And uh especially in addiction uh recovery the recovery world Where I I think we can root this all the way back into the story of Adam and Eve, where just as God created Adam out of the dust of the ground and and and Eve out of his rib. So Adam and Eve created a false image of an angry God out of the dust of their shame. The moment they stumbled, they felt the need to hide. Why would they have ever need to f that? Who gave them that impression? Well, they’re shame-ed. And so I will meet people who are like, I don’t I’m not worthy of God. He’s angry at me, he wants to punish me. I’m like, well, where did you learn that? And it was just from Completely internal sense of shame. So I think you can get the range of this from the unchurched person all the way to the heavenly, heavily indoctrinated one where. The cross was a mechanism to appease the wrath of an angry God. And uh we just have a way of gravitating there that must be part of the human condition, I suppose.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, I think shame is certainly a source for it. And even though the cross is, I think, culturally emblematic of of Christian faith. uh the the angry god, the the the vengeful, punitive god that still exists culturally, I think, in the West, that’s still out there. I think that that kind of cultural emphasis combined with shame locks people in a bit of a of a theological dungeon if they think that this is this is the the true the true God. Um and so I’m I’m asking questions about this angry God, in part because as we’re reflecting on the cross, I think one of the popular understandings, I would call it a misunderstanding, is what you said a moment ago, this idea that well Jesus had to die to appease God’s anger, to satisfy God’s wrath And this is a a theory of the atonement that both you and I held at one point. Um I uh did uh for various reasons. I think it has a lot to do with my theological training. Um but for a long time I sort of I held on to these assumptions. Well, yes, God is a God of love, but also a god of wrath and that wrath needed to be dealt with. And one of the the texts, biblical texts that caused me to get wrapped up in this is Romans five nine, where it says, Much surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, we will be saved through him from the wrath of God. And it was in reading a more Christ-like God, I realized that the little phrase of God is not in the Greek text. Now this might be a very small and insignificant little point that you make in your book But for me, it was a key that unlocked a theological puzzle in my mind. because I was wrestling with this God is love but business. Um, but what about this text, The Wrath of God? And to see that the of God is an assumption added by English translators. And if you if you hear even in English That one line of scripture uh from Paul’s thought, it does sound different that we are being saved from the wrath. That sounds much different than wrath that belongs to God. So in a more Christ-like God, you talk about wrath as not a literal attribute of God but rather a metaphor that is pointing to divine consent to our own choices. Can you unpack that a little bit? What do you mean by that? Sure.
Brad Jersak: So my sense is that the ancient worldview regarded God as the cause of everything. So when a bad thing would happen They would say, well, God caused that bad thing. But go if God is righteous and holy, he wouldn’t cause that bad thing. arbitrarily, he must be punishing something. So early on you get this idea of wrath, which the word wrath literally means violent, violent punishment, or anger, anger that leads to violence. So they would attribute every earthquake, every flood, you know, every natural disaster to the wrath of God. They would include every time a foreign army would come and punt and destroy your city and If you would lose in battle. If God causes everything, he caused that, and therefore he’s wrathing me. And so now you’ve got to figure out who to blame, because somebody sinned to cause this. Eventually, there was a sense that God can’t be the immediate cause, or that would make him unrighteous. He would have blood on his hands. So they developed the idea of a destroyer. sometimes we’ve translated the destroying angel. It’s it’s just the destroyer, but the destroyer was sort of like here’s God’s hitman to keep him at arm’s length from this kind of from the actual violence himself, so the blood wasn’t on his hands And so that’s where you get the destroyer. And then later there is this sense in which uh we need to distance from the destroyer. God can’t be having a hitman running around from him. So in wisdom of Solomon, which is in the most Bibles in the world. It’s in the what we call the Apocrypha as Protestants. which was just the the books we cut out in the fifteen hundreds, which is a little bit late for scripture alone people to be doing that, in my opinion. But there it says that the Messiah is coming to destroy the destroyer and overcome the wrath. So the wrath and the destroyer then become uh synonyms in the Jewish mind for Satan. And the rabbis would treat those as synonyms. So what a move. The difficulty is this way, this shift from first of all, God is the destroyer to God sends the destroyer to God sends his son to destroy the destroyer. Sometimes Um, the authors who are who are editing the the final form of the book, you’ll see all of that happening in one story. So the big example is um the tenth plague. Who kills the children? Well, it says, you know, God destroys the firstborn, but then it says, well, the destroyer destroys the firstborn. Well, then it says, actually, the blood of the lamb. protects you from the destroyer and delivers you from him. So you may get all three of those perspectives, but with Jesus coming along, he’s our final revelation. John 10, 10, it’s the thief who steals, kills, and destroys. I, and by the way, I’m God, yes, same yesterday, today, and forever, I’ve come that you’d have life and have it to the full. So, Romans 5, no, Jesus is not saving us from his dad. He’s saving us from the wrath, which is the consequences of our own defiance.
Derek Vreeland: So breath in is metaphorical and not literal. So when we speak of the nature of God, It now seems to me very profane to say, well, God is uh a mixture. There’s there’s love, but there’s also this wrath. But Brother, I think what we’ve seen is no, God in God’s essence and nature is pure love. And any wrath associated with God is uh a metaphor That is speaking of something very real, and that there are very real consequences to human sin and injustice. And so Jesus’ blood, his death upon the cross, is is rescuing us from our consequences, from the things that that we have done that God consents to, that God allows to happen. So I’m curious about this process because I am with you and I’m in favor of this unwrathing God process. And you mentioned we need a better way of reading scripture. And I think that is such a big part of unwrathing God. In a more Christ-like word, you talk about reading in the Emmaus way. Describe that process for us a bit, because I think that’s one of the major ways that we can unwrath God.
Brad Jersak: Sure. On the afternoon of his resurrection, Jesus meets up with two people who are walking quite forlorn and uh He asks them what’s going on, and they describe what’s happened this weekend and how they, you know, they thought that Jesus was a prophet who was going to deliver them, which I’m like, that’s all you got out of three and a half years? But oh well. Um and then he opens the scriptures to them and he opens their hearts to see that the law, the prophets, and all the scriptures We’re testifying that the Son of Man must suffer and then enter his glory. And then in the upper room, shortly thereafter, he adds the Psalms to that. And basically he’s saying, these scriptures all point to me. They’re fulfilled in me. And he doesn’t just mean the odd prophecy here and there or a list of prophecies. He’s saying the whole of scripture is leading up to this to the passion of the Christ and his death and resurrection. So here’s how that works. And I you can see it in a letter in a sermon by Malito of Sardis in the second century. He was a grand disciple of John the Apostle. And he says this. I’m summarizing, I’m paraphrasing. Melito says that every time you see the people of God suffering in the whole Old Testament, it is always a prefigurement, like a movie trailer. Of the much greater suffering of Jesus on the cross when he bears the sins and sorrows of all humanity for all time. Every time you see an injustice by the people of God, where they wander away and betray their covenant to God, It is a prefigurement or movie trailer of the much greater betrayal of humanity through Pilate and Herod and Caiaphas and Judas and the mob of humankind itself. in our rejection and murder of of God’s Son, and every victory in the Old Testament, even the very dubious ones where there’s a lot of bloodshed and no mercy, these forecast a much greater victory of Christ over Satan’s sin and death, in which no one else needs to die, and where violent the violent anger of God is uh nowhere to be seen, because he is light And in him is no darkness at all. He is life. He’s the the light and life of humankind, right? So so the suffering, the sin And the victories of the Old Testament are all like shadows or like a little, you know, an architectural model of the greater thing to come.
Derek Vreeland: Well, I love that. I love that so much. And uh it has become my practice uh reading in the Emmaus way, allowing Jesus as our rabbi to illuminate uh the Old Testament in such a way that we can see how it forecasts him. My daily Bible reading, I follow the Daily Office lectionary in the Anglican tradition. And it has um it’s a lectionary reading for every day. So there’s Old Testament Epistle Gospel every day. And I just finished Second Isaiah. And this time going through my Isaiah 40 through 66 and looking for Jesus made that reading of second Isaiah absolutely thrilling. I mean, I understand why. some scholars call Isaiah the the fifth gospel because if you can read it in the Emmaus way, if you can allow Jesus to reveal to our hearts and minds how these scriptures point to him It’s absolutely thrilling. Well, Brad, thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find you online?
Brad Jersak: I have a website called bradgersack. com. And the moment you open that up, you can also subscribe to my free Substack, which is where my blogs come out And um you can probably find me around Instagram and and uh Facebook as well as Bradley Jersak.
Derek Vreeland: Well, I want to encourage people to connect with you online to find out what’s happening at St. Stephen’s University. And as I do on a regular basis, if you’re listening to this podcast, I want you to go get Brad’s books, particularly a more Christ-like God. That book has been so transformative in my own heart and life. So thank you again, Brad. I love you. I appreciate you. Thanks for your time today. My pleasure. Well that’s all we have for today’s episode.
Guest: Thanks for joining us. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.